


Wonderfully Wandering Alone

by Queen_of_mud



Series: I’d Like to Believe in all the Possibilities [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Origin Story, Pre- Project Blackwing, Pre-Canon, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), give this boy a Break!!!, hes like 5-11 in this, it gets sad in some places but it shouldn’t be too bad, pre-blackwing, tragic backstory, young!dirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 01:52:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_of_mud/pseuds/Queen_of_mud
Summary: Before he was Dirk, he was Svlad. Svlad wasn’t a normal child. He was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he knew things he shouldn’t have been able to know.Svlad wasn’t a normal child, but he wasn’t a bad one either.(Aka a pre-blackwing backstory)





	Wonderfully Wandering Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Me: uhhhh hey @brain can I have some uhhhh inspiration and motivation? I’m trying to get some of my original novel done. 
> 
> Brain: oh! Sure! Here u go!!
> 
> Me: oh hey @brain???? What’s this? 
> 
> Brain: writing inspiration/motivation 
> 
> Me: yeah I said for my book... what’s this??
> 
> Brain: motivation to write a ten page dirk gently fan fiction
> 
> Me: wow thanks that’s not at all what I wanted 
> 
> ———
> 
> Title by C’mon by P!ATD and Fun.

Svlad wasn’t a normal child. The other kids his age, they went outside and played in the mud. They got messy. Svlad preferred to read, he loved learning new things. His mother once took him to the Natural History Museum in London. He walked around starry-eyed the whole time, completely immersed in his surroundings.

He loved his mother more than anything. The other children, they didn’t understand him. His father, even, thought he was a bit weird. But his mother listened to his ramblings. She smiled and nodded along to the words that spewed out of Svlad’s mouth seemingly faster than the speed of light. Sometimes he thought she understood, but every once in a while he caught the concern in her eye that she quickly wiped from her face when she saw he was watching.

  
Svlad knew that something about him was different. He knew that some of the things he said were things that he wasn’t supposed to know. He knew that it wasn’t a coincidence that whenever he felt an urge to go somewhere, something bad happened. And he knew his mother knew too.

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

One weekend, when he was five, he and his mother found themselves in the local park. They were sat down, Svlad enjoying a container of pretzels and his mother reading a magazine. That morning he’d felt a tug in his stomach, a familiar tug telling him where to go. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt it, but it was the first time he’d followed the feeling. He didn’t know what would happen when he set out- maybe if he did he wouldn’t have followed it.

The two sat on a bench across from a small duck pond surrounded by elders and children throwing bread and seeds into the water. It was a tranquil scene, the pastel color of the afternoon sky blending nicely with the green grass and the clear pond. His mother leaned over and asked Svlad if he wanted to join the group of people feeding the ducks. He nodded in response, although he didn’t know why. He didn’t _want_ to per say, he’d read somewhere that bread made ducks sick. He didn’t want to make any ducks sick, but he knew that he had to go down to the pond or something bad would happen.

_Something bad would happen._

So he followed his gut. He took the bread from his mother, not mentioning it’s toxicity, and followed the stone path to the edge of the pond. He perched himself next to an older man with white hair covered by a floppy fishing hat. Svlad thought the hat was funny. The man wasn’t fishing, he was feeding ducks. Why would he need a fishing hat? But Svlad didn’t ask. He just waved. The man chuckled and waved back with a bemused expression. He grimaced, as if the motion gave him pain.

“What’s your name, boy?” He asked with a raspy, yet jolly voice.

“Svlad,” he replied. He wasn’t very talkative when it came to strangers. But his parents and neighbors would never hear the end to his ramblings. He sat down next to the man and began to eat the bread his mother had told him to give the ducks.

“Tell me Svlad,” continued the man in a belittling tone. “Why aren’t you feeding the ducks with that bread you’ve got there?”

Svlad told him.

“It makes them sick?” He asked, dropping his paper bag at his side.

Svlad nodded. “I read it. In National Geographic.”

The man looked impressed. “Well then, I better stop feeding it to them,” he sighed. The man stood, grunting in a fashion that didn’t seem normal for a man of his age.

The entire interaction happened so quickly that Svlad didn’t recognize something was wrong until the man clutched his heart and collapsed on the ground.

Svlad didn’t remember much after that, he remembered yelling for his mother, who came running down and used her knowledge as a doctor to assist the sick man. He remembered a group of bystanders forming around them, all ordering each other to call an ambulance. And he remembered thinking that maybe if he hadn’t been there, nothing bad would’ve happened.

An ambulance came, and the man was fine. Svlad’s mother told him that the man had suffered a heart attack, and it was a good thing that they had been there or he might’ve died. But he didn’t believe that.

He knew better.

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

  
Svlad’s parents didn’t talk to each other that much anymore. Only when it had to do with what was happening to Svlad; where was Svlad; what did Svlad do today; Svlad this; Svlad that. That was all they talked about. His father stayed up late at night, whispering to his mother about how Svlad was too much, how Svlad was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. How he didn’t know if he could take it anymore. How Svlad was dangerous.

His father left on a Tuesday.

By the time Svlad got home from school, all of his things had been removed from their flat. He didn’t ask questions; he didn’t need to. His mother cried for a few days, and he comforted her when he could.

They moved on.

Svlad liked to consider them a two-person strike team. Together, they could take down anything in their path.

That is, until Svlad got kicked out of school. According to the principal, several teachers and students had filed complaints against him for supposedly making them ‘uncomfortable’. It was a private school, housing mostly children of rich entrepreneurs and engineers. Svlad, being one of the few ‘Gifted Young Minds’ selected for full scholarship, was more susceptible to being punished harsher than other children. A meeting was called with Svlad’s mother, where they read off a rehearsed speech. _We regret to inform you of the expulsion of Svlad Cjelli..._ His mother begged them to reconsider, but Svlad knew that this was always going to happen. It was how it was supposed to be.

That night, he asked his mother why they’d kicked him out.

“You must’ve been too smart, dear,” she laughed. Svlad loved her laugh. But he knew her words were untrue.

“It was because of what I said to Mister Roberts, wasn’t it?” He asked. He’d said a- a _thing_ that he wasn’t supposed to know by accident, he was sure of it. The woman put down her sewing project and looked up with sad eyes.

“It certainly didn’t help, sweetie...”

Svlad felt a question build up, one that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was meant to stay inside of him, and he wished it had, but in a moment of pure instinct he blurted out, “What’s wrong with me, Mum?” There was a long pause.

“Nothing, baby.” She whimpered. “You’re just observant is all. You’re a little detective.”

His mother cried. He thinks that she cried that night even more than when Dad left. She cried and cradled him close and whispered in his ear that nothing was wrong with him, that he was just fine the way he was. They fell asleep on the couch that night, warm in each others arms.

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

Public school wasn’t as bad as his peers had cracked it up to be, Svlad decided. The teachers babied him, and they taught subjects he’d already mastered in his free time. But the children were nicer. They never made fun of him for being on scholarship. And, according with the principal, they were more equipped to deal with children with ‘behavioral issues’. Svlad didn’t think he had behavioral problems, but in all honesty he preferred that thought to the alternative. Loads of kids had behavioral problems. Nobody had what Svlad had.

Fate went easy on Svlad for a while. He had les hunches then usual. Less thoughts popping out of nowhere, confusing those around him including himself. It truly was peaceful, for just a little while…

But fate had other plans on a Thursday afternoon. Svlad stood at the end of the hallway, alone with his thoughts. The other children were at lunch, but his stomach couldn’t stand to eat at the moment. It couldn’t stand to be anywhere but where he was right now. He stared at the switch in front of him, contemplating his choices. He knew that flipping it would get him in trouble. But something was calling from inside of him, the same thing that told him to go to the park all those summers ago. He hadn’t felt anything this intense since then, and this was even stronger. The something told him the he had to do it, or something bad would happen.

_Or something bad would happen._

Isn’t that what he’d thought last time? And how had that ended? With a man hospitalized. What if this only led to more pain?

His arm reached out in front him, almost on autopilot as he sucked in a deep breath, as he pulled the fire alarm.

He thought the roof had fallen in at first. He thought the roof had gone and it was raining inside, but soon he realized it was just the sprinkler system. He heard children screaming and running. He laughed at it, the fact that you could give a child a reason to scream and run and they’d take it with open arms. But then he stopped laughing. He looked around him, and realized what utter chaos he’d enacted. Teachers scrambled to get their students out, but the children wanted to play in the rain. Wet papers flew everywhere. _Where had the papers come from?_ Everything was wet. An older woman slipped and fell on the wet tile floor, and was aided up by the school’s principal, running by.

Svlad saw the principal waving to him. He thought he was yelling to him, too, but if he was, Svlad couldn’t hear it. When the older man moved closer, Svlad realized that he didn’t moved since he pulled the alarm. He was the only one not moving in all the chaos.

The man seemed to put two and two together. When he reached Svlad, the man grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him out of his trance.

“Did you do this?” He shouted over the noise. Svlad didn’t answer, and the man shook him harder.

“Did you do this, Svlad?” After no response, the principal tried to pull Svlad away from his post. Svlad almost went with him, but something stopped him. He wasn’t done here yet.

Instead he turned around and ran where his heart told him to. He could hear yelling and a set of running footsteps from behind him, but he didn’t turn back. Instead he kept running, weaving through foot traffic and obstacles as if the seas practically parted for him. The same did not occur to the principal behind him, and Svlad escaped thanks to pure chance. Maybe it wasn’t chance, Svlad thought for a second, but quickly decided against it.

He kept running with no idea where he was going, but _somehow_ he always knew which way to turn. It was like following directions embedded into his muscle memory. He eventually stopped, both because he was out of breath and because the tugging wouldn’t let him go further. He didn’t know where he was. It smelled bad, and it was dark and warm. He was soon to realize that he’d made his way to the school’s boiler room. He didn’t know why he was there, until he saw a man lying face down on the cement floor. When he made his way over to the man, he recognized him as one of the janitors.

The principal appeared behind him in the double doorway, even more out of breath than Svlad was. From the look on his face, he was about to yell at him, but his expression quickly changed when the man caught a glance at the unconscious janitor.

“Svlad...” he breathed. “What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything, honest! I just found him, I swear!” There was a desperation in his voice, and for once he honestly had no idea how this was going to end.

The man shook his head in understanding. “I know, boy. I know.” They stood in silence for a second. Then, “Let’s get this poor man some help.”

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

The firemen discovered a gas leak that had gone undetected before they were called. _You’re lucky someone pulled the fire alarm, or many people could’ve been hurt._ They said the janitor had passed out because of it, and it was a miracle that they had found him.

They still punished Svlad, though. He had to eat lunch with the principal for a week after that. His mother was called in for a meeting with the guidance counselor. She wasn’t mad. She was never mad. Svlad sometimes thought that maybe she understood what it was like in his head, but he was always eventually proven wrong.

His mother informed them that it was completely normal for ten year old boys to be troublemakers.

Svlad wasn’t a trouble maker.  
He was a trouble _finder._

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

Svlad had a bad feeling. A very, very bad feeling. Something bad was going to happen.

_Something bad was going to happen._

It wasn’t like the other times. It wasn’t one signal inconsequential event. Everything that was happening, it was all connected in a way he understood but couldn’t explain. He could feel the downhill path that was unraveling for him, and it was long and hard and horrible. But it had to happen, he knew that too.

_There was nothing wrong with him._ That’s what his mother had assured him. _He was just observant. He was a detective._

Svlad was a detective.

He liked it at first. It was fun and games. Until it wasn’t.

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

His mum was screaming at the man at the front desk. Svlad almost felt bad for the man, but he probably deserved it. He hadn’t processed what was going on yet.

He had been arrested, he thinks. They’d put him in handcuffs and forced him into the back of their car.

His mother always told him that the police were who you called when you needed help. They were the good guys who protected the people from harm. So he didn’t cry or yell, he just did what the men told him to do. He wasn’t afraid. He felt eerily calm, considering the situation.

His mother was now yelling at the top of her lungs. Yelling how this wasn’t his fault. How you can’t just _handcuff_ an eleven year old boy. How he was just _special_.

Eventually they brought them both in for questioning. They let Svlad out of the cuffs, and brought him hot chocolate.

They started by asking Svlad to tell the story of what happened.

“Well you see, sir, I’m a detective.” The officer smiled at the boy tentatively. “And I was solving a mystery. Y’see, my neighbor-her name’s Missus Johnson- she hired me to find her missing cat. She paid me two dollars.” Once Svlad started talking, it was like he couldn’t shut up.

“And once I returned Mister Rodriguez- that’s the cat- to her, she told her friends what a good detective I was! And then there were, like, a billion people who wanted me to find their lost cats!

“I was so surprised about how many cats had gone missing, I thought that there _must_ be something connecting them. And guess what? There was! I found them all in the same place!”  
The policeman looked up from his note taking when Svlad paused his ramblings.

“Svlad,” the man sighed. “Do you understand how much trouble you’re in? I understand that you have experience with getting in trouble in school. You’re disruptive in class, diagnosed with ADHD. But, Svlad, you are not here because of the _cats_. This is more serious than pulling the fire alarm in year five. _You were found next to a dead body,_ Svlad. Do you understand?”

Svlad nodded, but his mother interjected.

“What are you suggesting? That my son killed this man?”

“Of course not, ma’am. We simply need information from him.” Turning to Svlad, he added, “Where did you find the dead man, son?” It was a stupid question. The police had showed up only minutes after Svlad did, it wasn’t as if he could’ve dragged the body to where he found it in the woods.

“How did you know to go there?”

It was as if a switch in Svlad’s mind had turned, and he no longer wanted to talk. He shouldn’t say any more than what he already had.

“I just went where I felt like going,” he explained curtly. The police officer sighed and stood up, exasperated with Svlad’s responses.

“Ma’am, there are some men outside that would like to have a word with your son. They’re likely more equipped to deal with children,” explained the officer, giving up on Svlad.

He exited the room and the mother and son were left alone in the room. She combed her fingers through his unruly hair as she quietly begged him to cooperate with the next man. Svlad promised he would.

After a few minutes of waiting, the door opened, and Svlad’s stomach did somersaults. All sense of calm he’d had before disappeared and was replaced with panic. He was afraid, terrified, and he didn’t even know why. The man that walked in struck a chord of fear in Svlad that he’d never felt before.

_This was bad._

_This was very bad._

The man must have seen the fear in Svlad’s eyes, because he sat down quietly and assured him that he only wanted to ask questions.

The man introduced himself as Colonel Riggins in a heavy American accent.

“Hello, Svlad,” He spoke. His gentle voice seemed to ease his mother, but it seemed as if a chorus of invisible voices were telling Svlad to run. His breath was heavy and sporadic as the man continued. “I work for the Central Intelligence Agency, the American government. You’ve come across our radar several times in the past few years. Now, Svlad, I know you’re a smart boy so I won’t dumb this down for you. We think you are a very... _special_ kid. Now, you told that police officer in there that you were a detective, yes? You must try to understand that it is vital to our own investigation that we understand how you came across this dead body.”

After a moment of Svlad’s silence, the man- Riggins- continued, “You’re afraid. You didn’t seem afraid with that other man. Do you mind telling me why you’re scared, boy?”

Svlad kept quiet for a minute more before speaking up in a small whisper. “You aren’t...meant to be here.” Then, louder, “You are not supposed to be here.” Soon he found himself shouting, and crying and laughing all at the same time. _You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t supposed to be here._

The words seemed to be forced out of his throat by another entity, as if he wasn’t even speaking for himself anymore. He was just a puppet, and someone else held his strings. He tried to stop the next thing to come out of his mouth, but he couldn’t control anything anymore.

“ _THE UNIVERSE DOESN’T WANT YOU HERE!_ ” He’d never used those words to describe it before, but immediately after he’d said it, he knew that was exactly what it was.

He couldn’t help himself. Every ounce of his body was begging him to run away, to flee, and if he had an ounce of self preservation maybe he would’ve listened. But instead he listened to his mother’s warm voice begging him to calm down, telling him it was okay, just to sit and breathe. But Svlad noticed Riggins’ sly smile, with almost a touch of pride. This was exactly what he’d wanted.  
»»-------------¤-------------««

They took him on a Saturday. Almost a month after first meeting Riggins.  
His mother had been in constant contact with him, against Svlad’s pleads. He said _Stop, Mum_. He said _He’s a bad man_. He said _He wants to hurt me._ But none of it got to her. She thought her son was paranoid, ignoring every other instance where he wasn’t.

He wished he had listened to his instincts. He went to bed the night before with his stomach _screaming_ at him to run. The Universe itself was begging him not to be a part of whatever was coming. He didn’t listen. Why didn’t he listen? It would’ve been so easy to slip away, to go where his heart told him to. But he stayed. Maybe it was for his mother. Maybe, it a way, it was because he wanted to prove himself right. Maybe it was because he was afraid of his instincts.

He woke up to a thudding sound from downstairs. Quickly, he got up and locked his bedroom door. They had come for _him_ , he knew. Hopefully they’d leave his mother alone. He was shaking, afraid of what was coming.

He could hear them stomping through their flat, there had to be at least twenty men. He could hear his mother screaming for them to leave. Svlad ran into his closet, climbing over the unkempt pile of old toys and tucked his way into the corner. It was mostly visible from the closet door, but if he positioned himself right, he wouldn’t be able to be seen.

That was, of course, if they even managed to get into his room. Which the wouldn’t. His mother would keep him safe, and besides, his door was locked. He focused on his breathing instead of the noise outside. _Four seconds in, three seconds out. Four seconds in, three second out. Four seconds in, three sec-_

An ear splitting crash ran through the room. It took all the restraint Svlad had to keep himself from screaming out. He realized his bedroom door had been kicked down off its hinges. What kind of man could kick a locked door down?

Svlad knew he wasn’t interested in finding out.

Something bad was happening. Right now. He didn’t need his… _whatever_ to figure that out. Something bad was happening and he, like always, was hopeless to stop it. When he couldn’t help it anymore, he screamed and he cried and he yelled at the Universe, and when the Bad Men burst open the closet door and pulled him out, he kicked and screamed and cursed at them. When he looked up, he was greeted by the most evil looking eyes he’d ever seen, accompanied by an even eviler smile. No matter how much he kicked and squirmed and tried to get free, Svlad’s arms remained tightly restrained by the men who held him.

They gassed him, forcing him to choke on air he couldn’t breathe.

“ _Nighty-night_...” said an evil sounding voice- one he could only assume matched the evil looking face.  
Then he passed out.

  
»»-------------¤-------------««

 

When Svlad woke up, he was somewhere he didn’t recognize. He was alone, and he had a horrible feeling that he was going to be alone for a long time. He was sad about it, but he didn’t have time to be sad right now. Right now he had to be scared.

A man walked in, the man he met at the police station. _Riggins_. He sat down before him and gave him a gentle smile. Svlad had to remind himself that he had done this. He’d taken him from him home to this bad, bad place.

“Hello, Svlad,” said the man. Svlad didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at him. He kept his eyes on the floor.

“Tell me...” he continued.

“...do you know the story of Icarus?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey thanks so much for reading!!! (Kudos/comments are very much appreciated!!)  
> If anyone’s interested, I’m gonna put a link to my Dirk Gently playlist in my bio!
> 
> This is in fact a series, and HOPEFULLY it will have 3 parts. I have no promises as to when the next part will be up, but it will happen!! (Next chapter will probably be shorter)


End file.
